Bonner says Spurs’ regular-season surge has been a surprise

The Spurs have bounced back from early struggles to claim the top seed in the Western Conference heading into the playoffs.

Spurs forward Matt Bonner admitted during a recent interview with Toronto radio station The Fan 590 (Hat tip: Sports Radio Interviews.com/Project Spurs.com) that he didn’t know what to expect when the season started after the lockout.

“You know what? It was a lot of uncertainty. I wasn’t really sure how we would fare if it was one week of training camp, one or two preseason games and then right into the season. We got off to a little bit of a slow start — we were 12-9 at one point — but since then we left for our rodeo month-long road trip and we’ve been rolling ever since. And a big part of that is obviously the young guys that have stepped in — guys like Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green, and Tiago Splitter, in his second year, has really come into his own. And we made some good pickups with Stephen Jackson, Boris Diaw and Patty Mills, which has given us a lot of depth with this condensed schedule, let us manage minutes, and everybody’s contributing.”

Bonner said the Spurs’ charge has execeeded any expectations coming into the season.

“I think we’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations. Not that we don’t expect to go out and win every game, but it has been a great regular season. Luckily, we know all too well from last year that doesn’t translate into automatically advancing in the playoffs, so we understand that and if anything, going out in the first round last year is motivating us to be extra focused coming into this year. And we’re ready to go — we’re in rhythm, we’re healthy, we’re deep and we just wanna keep that going these last two games going into the first round.”

The Red Rocket’s confidence is similar to that of his teammates. The Spurs will be gunning to become the first NBA team since the 2006-07 Dallas Mavericks to notch three winning streaks of at least 10 games heading into tonight’s regular-season finale at Golden State.

And if this team needs any kind of grounding going into the playoffs, the best reminder can be seen in that 2006-07 Dallas team. Despite a 67-15 record in the regular season, the No. 1 seed Mavericks were taken out in the first round of the playoffs by a Golden State team led by Stephen Jackson.